Buffy: In Space No One Can Hear You Slay
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In Space No One Can Hear You Slay! is an eight-page short story written by Andrew Chambliss, penciled by Georges Jeanty, and inked by Dexter Vines. Dark Horse Comics gave it away on Free Comic Book Day in May 2012 as part of its Buffy Season 9 run, and it is one of the lighter Aliens crossovers. Buffy took a vacation in space on a ship crewed by Spike's talking insects, where a sired crewmate molted into a vampire bug that looked like a Xenomorph. The story also borrows freely from the Alien films, from hiding among spacesuits to a homemade flamethrower.
Plot Summary
A Spacecation Among The Bugs
Aboard a round alien craft whose readout listed a crew of two humans and twenty-three insects, one of each already dead, Buffy Summers pressed herself between two white spacesuits and kept very still. It was her first long weekend in three months away from pouring coffee in San Francisco, and Spike had sold her on a space vacation where she could see something spectacular, like a comet, a supernova, or a white dwarf. Buffy had hoped the trip would help her forget what passed for vampires back home, yet she was now hiding on a ship with a giant, bloodthirsty space bug.
The insects who crewed the craft panicked when they heard that the thing sucked blood and asked if it was a mosquito, but Spike explained over his headset that their dead crewmate Irene had become a space-bug-zompire. The bugs had taken shore leave in the Haight after dark, been sired there, and then brought Irene's carcass back aboard. Buffy reported that A-deck was clear and asked for something sharp and wooden, but Spike warned that she would not find anything like that on what he called the S.S. Infestation.
Who Took Buffy's Stakes?
Spike pointed out that the crew were distant cousins of termites, and the warning came too late. Buffy opened her suitcase and promised that a Slayer always came prepared, but the case held nothing except her clothes. When Spike asked who had taken her stakes, the crunching from the insects huddled in his stateroom gave the answer. One of them confessed that after their sire told them to hide there, they had not known how long it would be until their next meal, so they had eaten the wooden stakes.
With no weapon left, Buffy pulled on a tan jacket and headed into the dark machinery corridors, and Spike told her to find a can of Bug Spray in his storage locker, spelling the words out loud. The insects heard it anyway and accused King Spike of wanting to commit insecticide, so he insisted the spray was only for the creepy-crawlies that did not talk back. Then one of the bugs said that Colin had gone missing after a trip to the little grub's room.
Bug Spray And A Lighter
Buffy found the can and told Spike that an insect had gone missing and they were going to need a bigger can. Spike told her he did not mean to spray the creature at all, and sent her to the pocket of his spare jacket for a Lighter. Buffy flicked it on and held the flame in front of the nozzle, which turned the aerosol into a homemade torch much like the flamethrower that Ellen Ripley carried. With it ready, she asked who wanted to get crispy and went after the missing Colin.
She found a hollow, shed shell on the deck, and when she stepped on it with a crunch she realized the bug-pire had left behind its leg and its abdomen because it was Molting. Over the headset, Spike showed his vampire face and asked her to squash the bug-pire, and Buffy told him it was not a problem. A burst of fire roared out of the can at the thing hiding in the dark, and Buffy called back that she had the creature cornered in the Solarium, while Spike warned her that these bugs were sneaky.
Cornered In The Solarium
The thing in the Solarium had become a creature with a long, smooth black head, ridged body, and steel-like teeth that looked like a Xenomorph warrior, and it towered over Buffy. She admitted that it was the one that had her cornered, not the other way around. The creature knocked the burning can out of her hand, and the two of them traded blows as it snarled at her with drool hanging from its jaws. Buffy joked that she had once thought Spike looked bad in his bumpy vampire face.
The bug-pire drove her back toward the wall, and Buffy, still without a stake or her makeshift torch, had to think fast while its jaws came closer. Then she remembered where she was, and the word Solarium gave her the plan. A room built for looking at the stars had to have a way to let their light inside, and their ship was passing close to a Sun. Because the creature had been sired like a vampire, it carried the same weakness as the undead she had fought for years, which ordinary Xenomorphs did not share.
It Is Spectacular
Buffy slammed her hand on a control panel, and the armored shutters over the Solarium windows slid open. Light from the nearby Sun poured into the room and struck the bug-pire, which shrieked and burned away in a cloud of green smoke while Buffy shielded her eyes. The vampire-insect that had been the crewmate Irene, or perhaps the missing Colin, could not survive daylight any more than the vampires of San Francisco could. The fire in the creature's body did not spread to the room, and nothing of it was left to threaten the insects hiding in the stateroom or Spike, who had warned her all along that the bugs were sneaky.
Afterward, the craft drifted past the blazing star while the green remains of the creature floated out behind it. Buffy watched the view and admitted that Spike had been right about one thing, because it really was spectacular. She got the spectacular sight she had been promised for her vacation, though not before losing her stakes to hungry termite cousins and fighting a Bug-pire armed with only a can of bug spray and a borrowed lighter from Spike's spare jacket.
Key Characters
- Buffy Summers was the Vampire Slayer, taking her first long weekend in three months from a coffee shop job in San Francisco. She lost her stakes to the insect crew, made a torch from bug spray and a lighter, and killed the bug-pire with sunlight in the solarium.
- Spike was the vampire who talked Buffy into the space vacation. The insects called him their sire and King Spike, and he guided Buffy over a headset, showing his vampire face as he asked her to squash the bug-pire.
- Irene was one of the insect crew, sired while the bugs were on shore leave in the Haight. Spike called her a space-bug-zompire, and the crew brought her carcass back aboard, where she rose again.
- Colin was an insect crewman who went missing after a trip to the little grub's room. His fate is not shown directly, and the creature Buffy found may have been him or Irene after molting.
- The bug-pire was the sired insect after it molted into a Xenomorph-like creature with a smooth black head and inner jaws. It cornered Buffy in the solarium and burned away in green smoke when sunlight hit it.
- The insect crew were the 23 talking bugs who sailed the ship, distant cousins of termites by Spike's account. They hid in Spike's stateroom, ate Buffy's wooden stakes, and objected loudly to the idea of bug spray.
Editions
In Space No One Can Hear You Slay! first appeared in the giveaway issue for Free Comic Book Day that Dark Horse released on May 5, 2012, shared with a story from The Guild. The cover advertised Buffy alongside Caitlín R. Kiernan's Alabaster, and the Buffy portion credits Andrew Chambliss, Georges Jeanty, Dexter Vines, Michelle Madsen, and Comicraft's lettering. Like the rest of Season 9, it carried Joss Whedon's name as executive producer, and it sat between the main issues of the season as a standalone side story.
Dark Horse later reprinted the short in the Season 9 Library Edition Volume 1 hardcover in January 2015, where it runs as a full eight-page story with its own painted title art of Buffy holding a stake. In that book it falls between the end of one issue, in which Willow and the police deal with the aftermath of a fight in San Francisco, and the cover of the next one. It is short enough that the reprint keeps it as a single chapter, and the Grand Comics Database lists that hardcover as its reprint.
Behind The Scenes
The title parodies the famous Alien tagline, and the story is built from nods to the 1979 film rather than an official license. Season 9 executive producer Joss Whedon, who created Buffy, had also written the screenplay for Alien: Resurrection in 1997, so the franchise was familiar ground for him. Buffy hiding pressed between two white spacesuits recalls Ripley hiding in the spacesuit locker aboard the Narcissus before she blasted the creature into space, and the solarium shutters echo that ending too. The improvised bug-spray torch stands in for the flamethrowers the crew of the Nostromo carried, while the molted Bug-pire is drawn as a classic black Xenomorph with inner jaws and a ridged skull.
Because the creature began as a sired insect, it is one of the comics' stranger Xenomorph hybrids, a monster that kept its host's vampire weakness to sunlight. That fits the DNA reflex idea, in which a Xenomorph takes traits from whatever it grows from, even though the story never shows a Facehugger, egg, or Chestburster. Writer Andrew Chambliss was also writing main Season 9 issues for Dark Horse at the time, and Georges Jeanty was the season's regular penciler, so the short matches the main series in look and tone.
Conclusion
In Space No One Can Hear You Slay! is a quick, comic Free Comic Book Day story by Andrew Chambliss and Georges Jeanty. It follows Buffy from her disappointing vacation on Spike's ship of talking insects through the loss of her stakes and a bug-spray torch to the moment she opened the solarium to a nearby sun. The vampire bug that looked like a Xenomorph burned away in the light, and Buffy finally got the spectacular view that Spike had promised her.
External Sources
Tag Categories: Alien Comics | Alien And Predator Crossovers
